Items tagged with mp3

Astoundingly, it looks like the darkest DRM days are behind us. As more and more companies digest the fact that DRM only hurts the legitimate buyers and gives pirates even more incentive to plunder for illicit bounty, we're seeing the DRM shackles removed from music stores across the web. The latest major company to cast aside the chains of DRM is Vodafone, which has become the very first mobile operator on the planet to offer up its entire music catalog (for PCs and mobile phones) with absolutely no DRM. In other words, when Vodafone customers download digital tracks from it, those subscribers...Read more...

We've all heard it before -- "turn that music down, or you'll lose your hearing!" According to a European Union scientific body, said phrase has never been truer. According to new data released this week by the EU Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (what a mouthful!), up to ten million young Europeans are "in danger of damaging their hearing by playing their MP3 personal music players too loud." Rather obviously, the study found that "listening to MP3 players and other personal music players at high volumes for long periods of time could cause loss of hearing and...Read more...

Swiss air rescue organization Rega says that an MP3 player was the key to locating two lost French tourists. No, the two weren't found by rescuers listening for music. Rather, the light from the display of the MP3 player was enough for rescues to home in on. Rega said it received a distress call from the French tourists late Friday. Unfortunately, the phone battery went dead before they could be located. The tourists, one a skier and one a snowboarder, got themselves lost late Friday outside marked runs near the resort of Savognin in southeast Switzerland. According to Gery Baumann, Rega spokesman:...Read more...

Using Azure Services Platform, a Microsoft “motoring guy” links his Porsche to GPS, music, Internet and more.Ori Amiga’s 12-year-old Porsche doesn’t look out of the ordinary, even if the car has been around the block a few times. But thanks to some custom modifications, this automobile is far from normal. Amiga never rides alone in his car, which he refers to as the “MeshMobile”—his digital life is always riding shotgun.Ori Amiga (right) shows a passenger the details of his “Meshmobile,” a 12-year-old Porsche that Amiga has turned into a digital showcase for Microsoft’s new Live Mesh and Live Services...Read more...

Songbeat has released a new version of its online music search, allowing users to search more engines simultaneously, along with the ability to play, export, and download songs. It can stream from SeeqPod, Project Playlist, Spool.fm, and iAsk, along with downloading music from your last.fm stations. To "download" the music, the Songbeat application records the live stream. According to Songbeat, this method of downloading is legal in Germany, where the company is located. The free version of Songbeat allows 25 song downloads for free, however, to get more users must download the full version of...Read more...

When we last visited Wal-Mart's attempt at DRM-free music, they had only managed to get EMI and Universal Music Group signed up for the DRM-free portion of their store. They've now decided to go all-MP3, but they're still stuck without Warner Music Group and Sony BMG, which are unfortunately the top two record labels.As Wal-Mart switches to the MP3 music format and redesigns its music store, it leaves behind Microsoft's digital rights management technology, which prevented the songs it sold from being played on iPods. The company has also ditched Sony/BMG and Warner Music Group, for now anyway,...Read more...

MP3 is a lossy format - meaning you lose quality from the original. Because of that fact, wording in a recently passed Italian law may have just made trading MP3 files legal.The law states that music or images that are at "degraded or low resolution" can be distributed on the Internet "for scientific or educational use, and only when such use is not for profit," according to a rough translation.Experts that have reviewed the law told the Italian daily La Repubblica that even though MP3's are not specifically mentioned, the fact that the word degraded is used implies the existence of that format,...Read more...

When Amazon MP3 launched last year, you can bet it was looked upon by Apple as just another minor threat to iTunes' dominance. But with the signing of Sony BMG, Amazon is the only retailer selling DRM-free music from all four major music labels. And now it's a major threat.Today Amazon announced that Amazon MP3 is going global, spreading DRM-free music worldwide. "We have received thousands of e-mails from Amazon customers around the world asking us when we will make Amazon MP3 available outside of the U.S. They can't wait to choose from the biggest selection of high-quality, low-priced DRM-free...Read more...

In a major coup, Amazon.com announced Thursday that by the end of January you'll be able to download MP3 versions of Sony BMG music from their DRM-free Amazon MP3 store. Thus officially dies DRM."We are excited to offer Amazon MP3 customers DRM-free MP3s from SONY BMG, which represents many of the most popular musicians from the past and present. Our Amazon MP3 customers will be able to choose from a full selection of DRM-free music downloads from all four major labels and over 33,000 independents that they can play on virtually any music-capable device."We never thought this day would come. ...Read more...

Yahoo released the beta version of its browser-based MP3 player yesterday. It allows you to link MP3s from anywhere on the web on your web page, add Yahoo-supplied javascript, et voila! :working play buttons appear next to any MP3s. * The interface between your document and our library is unobtrusive Javascript and semantic HTML: even though our library is Javascript internally, the API is HTML. * The API is fairly rich. You can set the image we use for album art. You can control the playlist sequence. You can tell us the song title. You can operate in...Read more...

Another grinch appears as a ten-year-old in Tennessee received a decidedly unwelcome present.Hill bought three of the players as Christmas presents for his children. He said one of the devices had apparently been returned to the store from a previous owner who loaded sex clips and songs with lyrics about using drugs."Within 10 minutes, my daughter was crying," Hill said Thursday. "I wish I could take the thoughts and images out of her head."Hill questioned why Wal-Mart Stores Inc. would sell used merchandise as new, which he said violates its own policies.The father is keeping the player until...Read more...

iTunes, Wal-Mart, and Amazon's "Amazon MP3" service sell DRM-free music downloads, but so far only from EMI (along with a "test" by Universal Music Group). Today Amazon.com announced it has beaten Apple (!) to the punch; it's signed a deal with Warner Music Group to sell MP3 downloads, giving customers the choice of more than 2.9 Million songs on Amazon MP3."Our customers are delighted with our DRM-free MP3 service. We have received thousands of emails from our customers since our September launch thanking us for offering the biggest selection of high-quality MP3 audio downloads which play on virtually...Read more...

In the spring Amazon.com said it would unveil a digital music store by year's-end. It looks like they are going to beat their timeline. Sources indicate that Amazon.com will launch an MP3-based music service in mid-September. However, it's also indicated that the date is somewhat fluid, as it has been pushed back several times already (shades of Microsoft and Windows Vista!). The online retail giant has tentatively set a mid-September target for the launch of its long-anticipated music service, sources familiar with the situation said. The store will offer songs in the iPod-friendly...Read more...

It's been said that if you want DRM-free music, take your CD and rip it to your hard drive. But everytime you do something like this, you lose something: quality. The compression involved in creating the MP3 file reduces the fidelity of the sound. But this is something we've all become used to, and it's still as good as the original, right? Not really. For purists, it's the dark ages of recorded sound. "You can get used to awful," says record producer Phil Ramone. "You can appreciate nothing. We've done it with fast food." MP3s have won the war of the formats because...Read more...